Kurdish protesters smash stores and police vehicle in northern Iraq

Kurdish Protesters clash with ant-riot police in front of Kurdistan Parliament building in Erbil, north of Baghdad, Iraq on 08 May 2012. Hundred rallied in front of the Kurdistan parliament against the article by Norwegian Kurdish expatriate writer Halmat Goran published on 02 May in a local magazine Chrpa. The article is said to be offensive to Islam and to Muslims.

Safin Hamed / AFP - Getty Images

Kurdish demonstrators destroy a store that sells alcohol during a protest denouncing a Kurdish magazine that published last week an article they say offended Islam, outside the Parliament building in the Kurdish regional capital Arbil.

Safin Hamed / AFP - Getty Images

Hundreds of Kurdish demonstrators surround a police vehicle as they take part in a protest denouncing a Kurdish magazine that published last week an article they say offended Islam, outside the Parliament building in the Kurdish regional capital Arbil on May 8.

Hashemi, a Sunni Muslim politician with the Iraqiya bloc, fled Baghdad in December when the Shi'ite-led government accused him of running death squads, a dispute that risked upsetting a delicate power-sharing agreement.

The vice-president, who is in Istanbul, has denied he was involved in murdering six judges and other officials. He says the charges are politically motivated and has refused to stand trial in Baghdad.

"My defense lawyer will present an appeal to Interpol in the next few days," Hashemi said in a statement. "I won't submit to pressure and blackmail."